What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

He does

 

Hello, if you’re referring to the ramps I have they are Pittsburgh from Harbor Freight. They are fantastic with solid construction. They are better made than the other brands from parts stores. When I get home I’ll try to remember I’ll take better pics of them and the underside to show the construction. If I forget today, tag me later tonight and I will.

 

Yup, I do! I need to take a full set of pictures now, I guess. I just have bits and pieces of pics as I finished different swaps.

 

Just curious, did you have to chop the body and remove the OE hitch? TIA

 

Ah you're right I see it now. You need to break the signal and rewire/solder connections to jumper the contacts. Sort of primitive but could work.
Is the controller pad able to be rotated easily?

 

Unfortunately the pad is asymmetric and can't be rotated. So people would need to put a vinyl sticker over it or do what Toyota does and paint it full black to laser etch new icons.

Made an appointment with a local PC repair shop this Thursday, gonna see if they can't solder up a proof of concept to remap the buttons...

 

I'm impressed with the gusto. Even if it doesn't work out I tip my hat in your general direction.

 

I think the best way to figure out how is going to be to plug in the switch, then using a multimeter on the wires see which wires control up, down, left, and right. Then swap the wires around at the plug.


EDIT: nevermind, wont work since it seems like its a pulse signal on a single wire.

 

It's a one wire pair control setup. I'm sure if we had the wiring diagram for the control circuit would look similar to the cruise control setup here:

The resistance, and the order in which the resisters are wired, are the important part in the circuit.

 

I had the exact same thinking when I first glanced at it!

 

You know what, This could be solved super easy with a arduino unit. Program it so when it gets a signal, it outputs the opposite signal.

If we can get what all 4 signals are, then it wouldnt take very much programming.

 

lol, me too

 

Aaaaaaaaand we've just invented the Maestro...

 

Pretty much, but since we dont need any other canbus things, just 4 signals we can make a smaller version that only cuts into a single wire.

On a related note, can you just use a maestro on the factory radio to reprogram the buttons? or is the maestro not adjustable?

 

I just called a shop to find out (since it's way easier than re-soldering a PCB...)

No. The Maestro is only compatible outputting to aftermarket head units.

Maybe Daveesa or PuppyPunter has enough big brainz to tinker up some kind of inline something-or-other.

 

So, one analog in and four digital outs to a small breadboard and 4 tiny 12v relays would do it. Hell, I could even use the same Arduino I'm planning on installing to fix the cruise control since I've got plenty of IO pins.

I like the way you think.

 

Exactly, a arduino has so many input/output lanes that you could program several things to the same board.

First thing we would need to find out the output signal from the switch. Is up 1 pulse, down 2 pulses, left 3 pulses, right 4 pulses? or is it run on a voltage output (up 2v, down 3v, left 4v, right 5v) or something like that.
Once we have what the signal that switch is outputting, then we just swap it with another value inside the arduino

function volume (pulse) {
if (pulse == 1) {
output = 3
};
return output;
}

This would result in pushing up sending out a signal for left. You can use a single input and single output on the arduino

 

Definitely going to be resistance, not pulses. So my thought whatever voltage the input pin sees, it outputs to a digital pin to a 12v relay (since it's 5v out max) that is behind an appropriate resistor to get the correct voltage down the line. Unfortunately I can't think of a way to do it without 4 relays and 3 resistors. Then just convince @MESO to make a new button cap with the corrected icon locations.